Managing director Ian Ayre has admitted it took Brendan Rodgers the best part of a season to get used to Liverpool - but is confident his "infectious" enthusiasm equips him to succeed at Anfield now.

Rodgers joined Liverpool from Swansea last summer after two years at the Welsh club, who he led to promotion and then an 11th-place finish in the Premier League.

But he made a slow start at Liverpool, only taking two points from his first five games and being 12th in the table after 17 matches before improved form took the Reds into the top seven.

And Ayre told the Liverpool Echo: "I think it took him most of last year to understand the size of Liverpool Football Club and he said some of this himself in the final couple of months of last season.

"I think coming from Swansea as an ambitious, young, successful manager and stepping into the Liverpool club was overwhelming in terms of size - certainly not in terms of his ability - and I think he felt that as he went through the season he got more and more used to that."

Liverpool took 36 points from the second half of last season and Ayre believes it shows Rodgers is getting the rewards he deserves.

"He had a fantastic second half of the season," Ayre added. "Brendan is a fantastic person to work with. He's quite infectious, a great person to spend time with and he's very personable with the players.

"He never stops working, is always on the phone, very collaborative and we work great as a team here so we're very optimistic about this year.

"We've made some good investments in the transfer window and we will continue to look at that until the end of August."

After enduring a tricky start to his Manchester United career, perhaps it is fair that Marcos Rojo celebrated so boisterously as he watched his first professional club Estudiantes beat fierce rivals Gimnasia